Posts by TeeCee

I followed that link to the past excuses.

I was quite surprised to find so many finding it difficult to believe that someone could leave their phone on a car roof, especially as I have actually done that. That was back in the days of outrageously expensive analogue ones too. Ouch and my employers were none too impressed.

For "thing on a car roof" nothing beats a mate of mine. I was driving a carload of people to Glastonbury and we'd stopped for coffee and a wee at the M'way services. Once back on our merry way, he went to roll a fag and couldn't find his tobacco and papers. Then, on poncing a cig off someone else, he couldn't find his zippo lighter.

After puzzling a bit he had a "lightbulb moment" and remembered putting them on the roof of the car as we'd been standing around it at the services. He then proceeded to wind the window down and feel on the roof.

"Damn. They're not there!"

"As we're currently doing 70mph on the motorway, I'd be a bit bloody surprised if they were.........."

AI?

Hopefully not and it's just a dumb ROV.

Any learning AI worth its salt would be going in on the principle of "shoot first and ask questions later" next time.....

Oh yeah?

The newspapers had complained that Google had been "unnecessarily aggressive" in removing them from the search engine.

And who started this almighty game of silly buggers in the first place? Google's action sounds like a rather obvious version of; ".......and the horse you rode in on."

"So Broccoli phoned Aston Martin and Bond ended up in a DB5 instead."

Hardly surprising. David Brown was not as financially adept as William Lyons and probably never considered what he could have sold the cars for.

When Astons changed hands recently, it was remarked at the time that it was the first time in the firm's history that it had been sold as a going concern, as opposed to being rescued from bankruptcy. As an illustration of the problems behind this, a short tale was related:

David Brown showed Clark Gable around the Aston factory and at the end of the tour, Gable said:

"Thank you Mr Brown, that was most interesting and I'd actually like to buy one of your cars. However, as the association with my name will obviously be of great benefit to your company, I am not prepared to pay any more than the cost price."

Brown's response was; "Thank you Mr Gable, that's very generous of you. Most of our clients pay around a thousand pounds less than that.".......

Good.

Maybe this is the kick up the arse required to get 'em to make Android voice dialling work, as in:

"Call xxx on yyy."

<clear readback to confirm>

"Yes."

<dialling>

rather than the current:

"Call xxx on yyy"

<Picks random number from phonebook, delivers readback at inaudible volume for no apparent purpose and dials number.>

FFS Google. MS got this working damn near perfectly with their Voice Command product for WinMo a decade ago, despite the crap platform and sclerotic hardware at the time. What the hell's stopping you?

It's one of the few things about Android that really is worse than useless.

Cloud washing.

I did wonder what cloud washing was (so we need cleaner clouds - some of those grey ones could do with a rinse or two I'm sure), so I followed the link.

From the actual linked article, it would appear that it's actually "cloudwashing" (i.e. like "greenwashing", badging something as something it's really not, in order to get on the bandwagon).

Cloud washing as two words, in this context, would appear to be some headline writer's pig's ear on being presented with an error from their spoil chicken.

Next week:

Grayson Perry appointed Lucasian professor of mathematics. "It was a difficult decision, but this small, ugly pot with a crude representation of a willy on it shows a profound understanding of n dimensional Modular Forms. Having said that, it was his pigtails that swung our decision. We really like those."

"Why don't we raise the shields?"

"Two reasons sir. First, we haven't got any shields and second, we haven't got any shields. I realise that may sound like one reason, but it's such an important one I thought it was worth mentioning twice."

There's only one thing I can say:

Baaaaaaa.

I'll have my thick, woolly coat please.

The point is..........what?

"The important details of battery life and price have not been revealed."

So this is all fur coat and no knickers then?

Pistol.

"...Ukrainian dolphins of death will not be required to learn how to shoot ranged weapons such as the Heckler and Koch P-11 or one of its Soviet/Russian equivalents..."

I should hope not. While the things would probably fire underwater, the back pressure caused by having the barrel full of water on firing could cause some exceedingly unpleasant results.

Change of system?

The old way of doing things was that a panel would review what had happened in the world recently, looking for a standout candidate who had worked to bring peace in some way or another. The trouble was that "nobody" won 19 times.

I guess that, judging by awards in recent years, the new system involves papering a wall with a selection of the world's newspapers and then chucking a dart it while blindfolded. Process is repeated until a proper noun is hit.

We'll know if I'm right. They'll award it to Stannah Stairlifts one year.......

Vestibule.

Seems awfully archaic and somewhat quaint to refer to something on a Space Station as a "vestibule".